27 October 2014

What Do the National Football League and the Medicis Have In Common?

It goes a lot deeper than bling and big houses. If you were
to say “trophy wives,” you’d be warm, but the Medici women were prizes
themselves, at least as wealthy and glamorous in their own right as any starlet
or supermodel.

The rather sordid and sinister answer is: domestic violence.

During the course of my research for INGLORIOUS ROYAL
MARRIAGES, when I came to the chapter on the 16th century unions of
the stunning heiress, Isabella Romola de Medici to Paolo Giordano Orsini, the
scion of a prestigious Roman family; and that of Isabella’s incredibly warped
younger brother Pietro de Medici to their beautiful and spirited cousin
Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, little did I realize how relevant their stories
would become to current events.

To me, the horrific events of these two Medici marriages
were shocking. I have written about countless royal unions, both connubial and
extramarital. Because most royal marriages were arranged, and therefore not
love matches, it’s no wonder that they failed to some extent—that there was
acrimony, or adultery. But murder? And not the Henry VIII-trumped-up-charges-of-high-treason
sort. But the kind of spousal assault designed to look like an accident where
the husband then weeps crocodile tears. And gets away with it.

Fast-forward to the O.J. Simpson trial in 1996. Or only
recently, when Ray Rice seemed to think it was ok to sock his then-fiancée-now-wife
(who therefore can’t testify against him) in an elevator. Rice was steamed that
a gossip blog released the hotel’s security camera footage. Because otherwise
he would have gotten away with attacking his woman. The NFL was prepared to put
their heads in the sand over the entire incident until the commissioner was compelled
to go to the videotape.

We don’t have actual royalty in America. Those who are
doomed to remember history will recall that we fought a war to NOT have a king.
But we still love the idea of
royalty, so we anoint football players (or other pro-ballers). Or
pop/rock/hip-hop, etc., stars. Or Hollywood icons. Queen Bey. Prince. The money
they earn from their talent on the gridiron or catwalk or soundstage buys
untold riches, glitter, and power. And more often than not, a
get-out-of-jail-free card as well, just like the Medici men of the Italian
Renaissance, who whored and dueled and murdered with impunity, although their
wives were hardly permitted to live by those same social codes.

Isabella Romola de Medici was a Daddy’s girl, protected
during his lifetime by her father, the powerful Cosimo, Duke of Florence. But
after Cosimo died in April 1574, Isabella’s oldest brother Francesco became
Duke; and he had no use for his flamboyant sibling. Not only did he refuse to
aid her when she complained of her husband’s mistreatment, he abetted Paolo in
covering up the circumstances of her death. Francesco would do the same when
his brother Pietro strangled their cousin Eleonora with a dog leash. The girl
was a flirt, they concurred. She deserved it. Instead of Pietro being punished,
Eleonora’s name and reputation were smeared and the family honor was considered
tarnished by her behavior.

The Ravens’ Ray Rice is not the only NFL player in recent
memory to physically abuse his partner. In 2012, K.C. Chiefs’ Jovan Belcher
murdered his girlfriend, then committed suicide in the stadium parking lot, in
front of his coach. If only he’d started with himself, instead. In June of
2013, Pacman Jones of the Cincinnati Bengals was arrested on assault charges
for punching a woman outside a nightclub. In the summer of 2012, Chad Johnson
of the Miami Dolphins was charged with head-butting his newlywed wife outside
their home. He was released on bond a day or so after his arrest, but the team
cut him within 24 hours of his release. That same summer, Dallas Cowboys wide
receiver Dez Bryant was arrested on a domestic violence charge involving his mother. Evidently, during a family
visit, Bryant’s mother had become upset at him and asked him to leave,
whereupon he allegedly assaulted her.

The power and privilege conferred upon these princes,
whether by birth, marriage, or their ability to get the ball into the end zone
has all too often given them a pass when it comes to the issue of domestic
violence. Months ago, when I wrote my chapter on the two Medici marriages, I
thought I’d encountered a “one-off.” But recent headlines tell another story.
Whether the perpetrators wear the red, white, and green of the Medici, or the
colors of an NFL franchise, their behavior is not much different. Title or not,
these men feel entitled. And is it because we, as a society, have conferred the
mantle of royalty upon them, that they somehow believe themselves above the
law—and their women beneath contempt?

20 October 2014

A Sunday Escape into the Past at the Pelican Inn

A few weekends ago, I was looking for something fun to do with my daughter Mélanie that wouldn’t involve crossing one of the Bay Area’s many bridges would be relatively mellow while still giving Mélanie an adventure, and would ideally also provide me with writing inspiration. It seemed a perfect day for a visit to the Pelican Innhttp://www.pelicaninn.com/. The Pelican Inn, tucked away on the road to Muir Woods on the northern California coast is a reproduction of a 16th century inn. Francis Drake and his crew landed on the coast not far away, and the inn takes it's name from Drake's ship, which was originally called the Pelican before being renamed the Golden Hinde.

I told Mélanie we were going to visit a castle. And if not quite strictly speaking a castle, the white-washed, slate roofed inn certainly conjurs up an era of castles. Mélanie and I enjoyed the bountiful brunch buffet on the patio (complete with delicious housemade scones that were fabulous with Stilton and marmalade) while I made notes for a scene in my WIP set in a coaching inn that I realized I could model on the Pelican Inn. The bar shows what a bar was like in a British inn or tavern - not a long counter but a a small window at which barkeep dispenses pints just as the Pelican Inn’s bartenders do. The dining room has a huge brick fireplace, candle sconces, and wood paneling. The white washed walls, open beams, low plaster ceiling, slightly uneven floors, and the sort of rambling quality one expects of an old inn all help transport one in time.

After brunch Mélanie took my Guinness and her mug of milk outside to the garden where I soaked up more atmosphere and she looked for butterflies among the flowerbeds.

I held her up so she could peek through one of the casements and showed her how thick the window ledge was. It was a lovely afternoon, an escape to another time and place, and priceless inspiration.

What places transport you to another time? Writers, do you have favorite settings near to home that evoke settings in your books?

15 October 2014

Welcome back, Erica Monroe!

Thank you so much for having me again at
History Hoydens! It’s such a joy to be here. Today I’d like to tell you a
little about the setting of my latest novel in my historical romantic suspense Rookery
Rogues series, Secrets in Scarlet. Now, a rookery is an old term for the poorer
neighborhoods in London (basically the slums).

While the first book in the series (A
Dangerous Invitation) largely took place in the Ratcliffe rookery down by
Wapping and the London Docks, Secrets in Scarlet is contained to the
Spitalfields rookery in East London. Spitalfields borders up against the
surrounding rookeries of Bishopgate and Whitechapel.

Spitalfields wasn’t
always a rookery though—once it was a busy community teeming with prosperity.
The area was home to many Huguenot weavers, who when they emigrated from France
they brought with them the secrets of the silk weaving in Lyons. The entire
family would help weave on draw looms or hand looms.

Everyone in Britain wanted silk woven by
these ex-French weavers. Skilled weavers were certainly not a dime a dozen, and
though the process was incredibly time-consuming, they were able to make a
better living than they would in many of the other occupations available to the
lower class.

But during the 1820’s, all that changed.
Britain revoked the Spitalfields Act, and now people could trade freely with
France, so the Spitalfields weavers were no longer the ones producing this silk.
Coupled with the new machinery that dramatically reduced production times—and
the need for so many weavers—the small town descended into hardship. As Charles
Dickens states in his 1851 “Spitalfields” article for the Household Worlds journal, “From fourteen to seventeen thousand
looms are contained in from eleven to twelve thousand houses – although at the
time at which we write, not more than nine to ten thousand are at work.” Most
of the production moved to factories in Manchester or Lancashire that utilized
steam power. In my upcoming novella Beauty
and the Rake, my heroine, Abigail has weaved—either in a factory or in her
own home—since she was a child, and it’s all she knows.

In Secrets
in Scarlet, I created a factory that exists on White Lion Street. This
factory has somewhat factual basis, because it was marked on a map I found of
the Spitalfields/Whitechapel areas during the Ripper slayings (so as to whether
or not there was a factory actually on this site in 1832, your guess is as good
as mine, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence). My textile factory
solely does the weaving of the raw silk, so no steam power is needed. My
heroine, Poppy O’Reilly, goes to work as a weaver in this factory not only to
pay rent, etc, but so that she can save up enough money for her daughter to attend
a finishing school someday.

The new attachment made by Joseph Marie
Jacquard hastened the downfall of these skilled weavers. I show this loom in Secrets in Scarlet, as my heroine Poppy
works in a textile factory devoted to the weaving of silk. Though it’s often
referred to as a “Jacquard loom,” it’s actually an attachment that can be used
with many mechanical looms. It could be operated by one person, and because of
its punch card system, suddenly it was possible to work complex patterns into
the silk without having to reset the loom each time. You’ll see in the next
picturethat a portrait of Jean Marie Jacquard was actually woven on his
jacquard loom! (I find this terribly clever and punny.) Modifications of this
loom are still in use today in many clothing factories. In fact, because of its
punch card system, the jacquard attachment is cited as one of the first steps
toward modern computing.

For Poppy, the Jacquard loom makes her feel
independent and in control. She’s in London under an assumed name, so that
people won’t find out she’s really not a war widow—and that her daughter isn’t
legitimate. It’s exhausting, excruciating work in the factory, from sun up to
sun down, but it allows her to at least be able to make an honest living.
Surrounded by immigrants like herself (she came to England from County Cork as
a child), she feels at home. I loved being able to draw these parallels between
residents struggling to embrace the changes forced upon them, to Poppy and her
fight against society’s harmful views of her life.

Today, Spitalfields still boasts a charming
community. One of my favorite blogs for research during writing Secrets in Scarlet was Spitalfields Life
(http://spitalfieldslife.com). I
hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Book
blurb:

When a girl is murdered at a factory in one
of London’s rookeries, Sergeant Thaddeus Knight of the Metropolitan Police
comes in to investigate. But it’s not just the factory owners that Thaddeus
wants information on–the devilishly intriguing Poppy O’Reilly is a puzzle he’d
like nothing more than to solve.

Protecting her young daughter is the most
important thing to Poppy, and Thaddeus threatens the false identity she’s
carefully constructed. The last thing she should do is allow Thaddeus close to
her family, yet she can’t stay away from him. With danger around the corner,
will the secrets of a scarlet woman lead to their undoing?

Erica Monroe is a USA Today Bestselling
Author of emotional, suspenseful romance. Her debut novel, A Dangerous
Invitation, was nominated in the published historical category for the
prestigious 2014 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Romantic Suspense.
When not writing, she is a chronic TV watcher, sci-fi junkie, lover of pit
bulls, and shoe fashionista. She lives in the suburbs of North Carolina with
her husband, two dogs, and a cat.